The ILO’s Think Impact Toolkit: Practical Tools for Impactful Portfolio Guarantees

Credit guarantees can be a powerful instrument to mobilize private capital for achieving positive development results. To maximize their impact, it is imperative for guarantee providers to consider impact throughout the guarantee process and to do so in a systemic way. This is especially important as impacts created through guarantees are largely indirect and experienced at the level of final beneficiaries. 

To help organizations that are interested to embed impact considerations in their guarantee offer to financial institutions, the International Labour Organization (ILO) developed the Think Impact Toolkit for guarantee instruments which contains a set of practical tools that can easily be adopted and integrated into the broader impact management framework of a guarantor. The toolkit follows the logic of the Operating Principles for Impact Management and provides tools stretching from the early stages of the impact management process of strategic impact thinking (before a specific guarantee is designed) to offering guidance for an endline impact assessment (exit). The tools were tested together with Sida on its guarantee instrument. 

The launch event brings together institutions active in the development finance ecosystem, including financial institutions and development partners. 

Agenda and speakers: 

• Welcome and opening remarks: Using guarantee instruments and the quest for impact 
  • Mia Seppo, Assistant Director-General for Jobs and Social Protection (ILO) (TBC)
  • Ulf Källstig, ADG, Director Africa Department (Sida) 
• What is in the toolkit? 
  • Patricia Richter, Senior Technical Officer, Social Finance Programme (ILO) 
  • Fernando Libano, Technical Officer, Social Finance Programme (ILO) 
• Moderated Q&A session with Sida and a financial institution: Sharing experiences from using the tools 
• Discussion